After The End
by LookCloser2
Summary: Where does friendship end and love begin? Can love transcend both tragedy and death? For years, Lucas Scott has been torn between two women. In the end, he has to make a choice - right? The way the show should end, should this be the last season. LP BL JL


Please Read & Review. Enjoy!

**After the End**

Even over the phone, he knew she had been crying. "Hi," she whispered, shakily. "I have to tell you something."

"What's wrong?" His question was immediate, anxious. "Peyton, what is it?"

"Lucas," she stopped and he heard a muffled sob. "Luke…can you just come home?"

"I'll take the next flight out."

Peyton nodded and hung up slowly. Propping her head in her hands, she didn't try to stop the flow of tears that were now streaming down her face.

***********************

"Peyton? Peyton, where are you?" Dropping his bags in the front hall, Lucas began a mad dash through the house to find Peyton, nearly running into her as she walked out of their bedroom. Her eyes were red and puffy and he instantly drew her to him, cradling her head against his chest. Her tears soaked through his T-shirt as he rubbed her back comfortingly.

"Hey baby, can you tell me what's wrong?" he whispered gently.

"I went to the doctor's today," she mumbled into his chest.

"Okay…" encouraged Lucas. "What did you think was wrong?"

Peyton sighed. "My stomach has been hurting for a few weeks now. Not my stomach even, really, more my abdomen. And last night the pain got so bad that I collapsed at the office."

"Why didn't you call me?" Lucas declared, hurt. "I would have come home!"

"Just," broke in Peyton. "Just let me get this out." Taking a deep breath, she continued. "The pain shot up into my chest and my arm and I couldn't even breathe. But after about ten minutes it went away and I made an appointment for today. And…" She trailed off again and Lucas could feel her crying into his chest.

"Peyton." His voice was gentle, but firm. "What did the doctor say?"

"He said…" Another gasping breath. "He said I might have cancer."

Stunned, Lucas pulled back and lifted her chin, catching her tear-filled eyes with his own. "What do you mean, might?" His voice was calm, carefully controlled, but Peyton could hear the scared little boy behind the man's voice.

"He took some tests and did some blood work. The lab will send us the results in a few days. Until then, we just wait."

"Okay, okay." He nodded, as though reassuring himself as well as his fiancé. "Then we'll wait together."

********************

He was the one that answered the phone. He was the one that told her the news, too, and the one that held her close as she broke down, as he broke down. They knew that nothing would be the same after that because, no matter how long they had left, it would be hovering above them, an undetermined end but never forgotten. Was it two months they had left, two years? Perhaps, with enough medicine, a little longer?

In the end, it was two days. She was in a car accident before she even began the chemotherapy. Luke and Jake were both there to hear her ragged breaths as she clung to life. They were there when the machines started beeping wildly and when a crowd of white-coated doctors burst into the room. They were there when she grabbed both their hands and whispered, "I love you. But promise me, you have to promise…" They were there to hear her last shaky breath and to see her eyes drift sleepily shut, frozen in the innocent mask of death. They were left wondering, together, what Peyton had meant her last words to be, what she so desperately need them to promise, and why she had been taken from them both so soon.

Lucas looked for the answers in the bottom of a shot glass late at night. Jake searched for them in the lyrics of a song as he sang his young daughter to sleep. But if the answers existed at all, neither found them.

"Brooke?" Lucas murmured one day as she helped him home from yet another bar. "Do you know why?"

Brooke sighed. He asked her the same question every night. "I don't know why, Luke. But I guess God had his reasons." She responded in the same way every night, too.

"Brooke?" Surprised, Brooke paused. Usually he nodded before passing out again and she would tuck him carefully into bed, gently brushing his hair back to lay a kiss on his forehead, silently praying that everything would be okay, desperately heartbroken for their shattered lives. "Brooke?" Lucas questioned again.

"Yes, Luke?"

"What do you think Peyton wanted to say?"

Silently, Brooke wiped a tear from her cheek. "Maybe she wanted to tell you that you would be okay. That even though she isn't here anymore, you are and that it is all right for you to move on and live your life."

"Brooke?"

"Yes, Luke?"

"Will you help me?" He noticed her tears then and reached up to brush them away. Calmly, almost soberly, he drew her into a gentle hug. "You and me, Brooke, we'll be okay, right?"

Brooke nodded against his shoulder. "Yes, Broody, we'll be okay, you and me. We'll be okay."

***********************

"Mommy, Daddy, come on!" cried Lucy. The three-year-old ran ahead in the distance, lively and laughing. Lucas and Brooke walked slowly behind her through the metal gate at the edge of the cemetery. Ahead, they could see Lucy sitting in front of Peyton's grave, chattering animatedly to their dead best friend.

"She'll be trouble, that one. I can see it already." laughed Brooke, happily.

"Just like you," agreed Luke, a smile on his face.

"Oh, you know you love me," grinned Brooke, teasing.

Lucas nodded, suddenly serious. "I love you very much, Brooke Davis…Scott."

"Do you think Peyton's watching us now?" Brooke wondered aloud.

"Definitely. And I think that she would be happy for us. Her best friends are both happy now, even if it took a little while. Anyway, she had better be watching over us. Otherwise that beautiful little girl over there is chattering away to nobody."

Brooke laughed and together they went to join their daughter by Peyton's grave.


End file.
